Thursday, October 24, 2013

Great Big Crunchy Bags of Autumn

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "You've been going on about this stupid seat for like three days now, you lousy Brooks whore. How can you be so shameless?" Well, I can assure you that whoring for Brooks has nothing to do with it, and the fact is that this is by far the most interesting thing going on in my life right now and it's all I have to talk about.

So deal with it.

Also, my enthusiasm for bicycle equipment has a direct relationship with how much time I have to ride my bike. So if I'm really busy and haven't been able to get on the bike much I hate every bicycle part and think it's all marketing gimmickry. However, if I've been managing to get some rides in I start dorking out over stuff like a total Fred.

(Sorry, I think I used the wrong link there but I'm too lazy and apathetic to change it.)

Right. So of course like any Fred worth his chamois I have my seatpost and saddle rails duly scribed, marked, and so forth so that if I need to remove them for any reason I can replace them exactly as they were and keep my scranus happy. However, when you change to a completely different saddle all that goes out the window, and this one differs dimensionally from my previous one enough to render all my markings meaningless.

Still, I figured maybe I could account for those differences by employing a tape measure. Unfortunately, I could not find my tape measure, so I was forced to resort to this toy one I found in my kid's kiddie toolbox:

On the plus side, it has markings in both inches and centimeters. (Though my kid already knows we're American and that if he starts talking metric in this house I'll put him out on the street.)

On the minus side, the tape itself is all stretchy (probably so it's harder for children to strangle themselves with it), so I doubt very much I was getting consistent measurements. This was confirmed when I finished measuring and tightening and I straddled the bike only to find my new saddle was nowhere near where I needed to be.

So I proceeded to adjust it by feel. The way you do this is you close your eyes, meditate for a few moments, and become one with your scranus. Then you ride for a bit and ask your scranus, "How's that?," and it says, "Nose it down a little." Then you stop, adjust, ride for a bit more and it says, "No, nose it up a little." Stop, ride, adjust. "Move it forward now." Stop, ride, adjust. "Move it back now." Finally, my scranus sighed and said, "Ahhh, just right." As it happened, the seatpost clamp was pretty much dead in the center of the saddle rails, and the saddle itself was pretty much dead level, so had I just started out that way in the first place I would probably have saved myself a lot of trouble.

Once I had the saddle where I wanted it, I could relax and figure out if the thing was actually comfortable, and my first impression was that it was. Was it more comfortable than the plastic saddle I had on there previously? Yeah, possibly, but it was too early to say. Then I turned onto a dirt trail:

Here, it was definitely more comfortable, and it would appear that sitting on rubber when you're riding on irregular surfaces is in fact a pretty good idea, because it provided a little bit of suspension effect similar to what I've found you get from a leather saddle:

Granted, I only spent about two hours riding the thing, including stop-and-futz time, but so far I'm very pleased.

By the way, the little manual that came with the saddle says:

The Cambium Saddles are designed for immediate comfort from day one, and require no special initial or ongoing care or maintenance.

But then it says:

The organic cotton fabric has been treated with Brooks Numac to make it waterproof and create a protective barrier. Brooks Numac can be periodically re-applied.

Phew! For a moment I was worried I wouldn't be able to buy a special artisanal proprietary Brooks saddle treatment for this!

Anyway, as I continue to ride it hopefully it continues to get along well with my crotch.*

*[You are welcome to use the sentence above in your wedding vows.]

Speaking of dirt paths, what's better than riding on one on a lovely autumn day?

Not a whole hell of a lot, that's what:

By the way, in addition to dirt, there were also some spots of gravel here and there, and between my bouncy rubber saddle and my wide-ish tires I might be forgiven to think that my perfectly ordinary road bike also functions quite acceptably as a "gravel bike." Obviously though I'd be foolhardy to think that, and it would behoove me to rush out and buy a proper gravel bike immediately.

Also, suck on this, Thomas Cole:

And oh, what's that? You want some foliage porn? Well, here you go, you perverts:

So taken was I by all the red and gold and amber hues that after my ride I went home and pounded an entire bag of Terra chips:

(Look at those colors! It's like eating the fall.)

Then, in an attempt to really become one with the season, I stuck each foot in a pumpkin to cool my bunions and listened to Samhain while darning my Halloween costume.

Now, if you don't mind, let's look at this picture again:

"You know what I like about it?," he asked rhetorically. What I like is that you can look at this and see what the area must have looked like over 100 years ago when it was still "the country." In 1900 there were fewer than two billion of us, and now there are seven billion assholes on the planet earth. That's why last night I finished watching that documentary I mentioned yesterday, and here's what it was called:

Obviously they should have gone with this if they wanted to convey the head-in-the-sand theme, but whatever:

(BKJimmy)

Basically, the movie says that human civilization is a succession of increasingly large oligarchical societies, each of which collapse predictably and in turn, and most likely things will continue this way until we ultimately prove to be a failed evolutionary experiment and simply go extinct.

I'm not sure why it even matters anyway, since my understanding is that eventually the sun's going to blow up and the whole solar system will turn into a black hole--though in the movie Stephen Hawking says this is why we should all move to space, so maybe we can planet-hop throughout all of eternity and civilization will eventually reach its apotheosis by evolving into a fun-filled Douglas Adams-esque intergalactic romp.

Yeah, right. Really, given the utter futility of human existence, it's no wonder I spend all this time fucking around with a bike saddle.

And at a debate on Tuesday, the candidate endorsed by the city’s forward-looking transportation crowd surprised some supporters with a sudden skepticism about the picnic-table pedestrianization of Times Square.“I have profoundly mixed feelings on this issue,” Mr. de Blasio said, less than two months after lauding the pedestrian plazas as “wildly successful.”

"I'm a motorist myself, and I was often frustrated, and then I've also seen on the other hand that it does seem to have a positive impact on the tourist industry. So for me the jury's out on that particular question. I think it's worth assessing what the impact has been on traffic, what the impact has been on surrounding businesses. I will keep an open mind."

I'm beginning to suspect that de Blasio's plan was to push the whole pro-bike lane, pro-pedestrian thing because this is actually popular with New Yorkers and it probably helped give him the edge he needed to secure the democratic nomination and avoid a runoff. Now, though, he's pretty much a shoe-in for the general election so he can start reassuring people like the taxi lobby that he's going to take care of them since they give him a shitload of money. (You know, you can't have taxi drivers getting in trouble for trying to run down messengers and maiming tourists.) This is because de Blasio knows that, while most New Yorkers want safer streets for bikes and people, the most the advocates can do is throw hissy fits on Twitter, whereas the taxi lobby and all the rest of them can give or withhold hundreds of thousands of dollars from his next campaign. So I figure by the time he actually takes office, "Vision Zero" will have morphed into "Vision A Couple Hundred, Give Or Take."

Hopefully I'm wrong, though, because if there's one thing I'm good at, it's being wrong.

118 comments:

I don’t comment here often. But, what the hell, Snobman has modified my internet life.

1) I now seem to connect to every story concerning cycling deaths. And I was flabbergasted at the lack of comment on the deaths in the northeast from the 19 year old who crossed the centerline while speeding and took out four cyclists. Killed two. Had been stopped earlier for driving without a license. I mean earlier in the fucking day. And still had no license obviously. And who had just made a nice purchase streetside or roadside of some Fentanyl. Who knew you could score Fentanyl in freaking New Hampshire. At age 19? What happened to MadDog?

2) I now own a Walz cap. I will get back to you.( I have now run a big stripe of duct tape down my monitor to block the Bike Snob sponsor link row. Jeesh. )

3) I read “Just Ride” (and two of the three Snobby books). Ride was a mix of genius and bullshit and unnecessary dogma. Which now that I look at it, could be my review of most books.

4) I am hovering around a Brook’s saddle (subliminally infected pre-duct tape). And I don’t mean that Brook’s Vegan shit. Lord, I have not even owned one that was scraped off a cow’s ass yet. But frankly I think that Vegan saddle of Snob’s needs to be tempered, mollified, sealed, [insert your own verb] with a nice rub down from a T-bone or a pork chop first. Then ride.

like electing o'bama, twice. - "A progress trap is the condition human societies experience when, in pursuing progress through human ingenuity, they inadvertently introduce problems they do not have the resources or political will to solve, ... and sometimes leads to collapse.

Indeed. The cops, in an unusual move, immediately slammed that deathdealing girl in the jailhouse. They had been in charge of protecting this charity ride route. That pissed them off. And they may have been angrier about her driving without a license than the slaughter of innocents.

I put a Brooks on the Amsterdam when the stock saddle cracked, and it was super comfy right off the bat- prolly it depends on yer butt. It's a chatty wee thing, though... the great big springs squeak incessantly.

Babble On:I thank you and bow in your spokenscene Queens general direction.

Hoping your concussive interlude has resolved itself. I heard the two safest helmets on the biking planet are currently the Scott Wit and the new Smith Optic helmet which is not US available yet. I will test them when available, launching myself against various fixed objects and if I survive I will send you one.

Last night we watched the first 15 minutes of Caddyshack II over dinner, I shit you not. I had two successive realizations that will probably not make me enjoy the rest of the movie. It's bad when you think about stuff. Within that selfsame 15 minutes they introduce Jackie Mason, going to great lengths to make sure you know he is "the one rich guy in the movie who is NOT a douche." Which I realized (1) was essentially Rodney Dangerfield's role in the first one, that they are now trying to duplicate. And then I realized (2) that a big part of Rodney's schtick was probably stolen from Jackie Mason in the first place.

And then since THE WIFE is starting a business, we talked from a business perspective about how, when you make a sequel, do you even care if it's as good as the original? The sensible business decision is actually to put as little into it as possible, knowing you've got more-or-less a guarantee that a certain number of people will see it regardless, simply because of the first one. In short you only have to put something out with that name on it.

Thank you. I find the blogosphere a rocky and humorless place mostly. I stick to Snob and babble. I have previously ventured down some link alleys to blog posts that will likely require therapy to purge from my head.

I believe the correct word is "knit" in this instance. To "darn" is to repair an already knitted garment. As a longish-time reader I do not recall that outfit from previous years so I am thinking it is freshly "knitted".

I believe the correct word is "knit" in this instance. To "darn" is to repair an already knitted garment. As a longish-time reader I do not recall that outfit from previous years so I am thinking it is freshly "knitted".

We took in a feral cat a couple of years ago and called him Frank, cause he always spoke his mind. But the family that adopted him turned him into something like Snoofums, because their kids named him. So if young Snob has a voice in the naming (my guess is yes, big-time), it may be Stripey or Mr. Wiggles. Or Murray.

Sharp saddle Snobby, but you upset me a little today when you asked a rhetorical question and then immediately answered it. By definition a rhetorical question is one that does not invite or require an answer.

Also, metric pisses all over imperial.

Everything else was fine, though.

Except perhaps the use of the same photo twice.

And you could've chosen a better rock to lean your bike against. The one you did choose was banal of tone and unshapely.

Now that I think of it, today's blog is really substandard! All those chips you eat have diminished your brain function.

The only way any of your upgrade suggestions will happen is if some manufacturer/distributor reads it and is inspired to send him some free merch. I'm betting he'd still give away the white bar tape at a BRA/expo.

We have a semi-feral that lives on or about our pool deck that we had to call "Bubbles" due to an incurable upper respiratory infection that expressed itself nasally and in bubble form. I would have named her Sam (we didn't know the gender), but you have to go with what the universe gives you.

The kids walked in and announced that our cat was married and had a wife named Shiela. I said "How do you know he is married?" Baby girl says, "Because daddy, he has a whole family living under the deck."

I like to look of Brooks saddles but my sit bones hate them. Haven't been able to wait out the 1,000 mile break-in period. I'd also like to add that Brooks rivets, solid seats and hardness doesn't feel right to my female anatomy. Knowing that even if you do achieve breaking one in, you can't move in the saddle without experiencing discomfort again is a poor trade off to me.

The "break-in period" is the best part if you ask me. You can conform that new shit to your own personal anatomy and then when someone else rides it your like all "HEY MAN HOW DOES MY BALL-SWEAT FEEL ON YOUR TAINT?"

I guess we are going to have to get a kitty portaging accessory to hang on the Big Dummy so the whole family can go on a proper excursion. Or it could just ride on Snob's shoulder like some kind of pirate cat.

Snob...100 years ago? go back further father..throw your mountain bike in the back of your car (you have to...they're too knobby to cover any real distance)...take a spin around a mountainbike park, for example, Graham Hills Park (nothing to do with Graham Hill the driver...)..look at the thick cover of forest, think of how beautiful it is & tell yourself, "If I could have been here 200 years ago, I could see that all of this beatiful forest was clear cut to grow wheat & corn like every square inch of land within 20 miles of NYC to feed the multitudes"

Sponsored Linkway:

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!